The Journey Continues: The Geography of Grace
" as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." - Psalm 103:12 My dad was a compass type of man. I remember when we bought our family motorhome in 1972, he purchased two dash-mounted devices: an altimeter so we knew how high up (or how low down) we were, and a compass. As a child, there was something reassuring about knowing where we were and which direction we were heading. Perhaps that's why verse 12 from Psalm 103 appeals to me. It not only references compass points, but gives me a better understanding of God's grace. As I began looking more closely at this verse, I discovered something that made its meaning even more profound. Why did the Psalmist choose east and west, rather than north and south? The answer, I believe, tells us something remarkable about the nature of God's forgiveness. For the ancient Hebrews, the world was understood quite differently than we understand it today. Their experience of the world was b...
